The University of Maryland College Park, the state’s flagship academic institution (not to mention my alma mater), had scheduled a screening of the high-end porn film, Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge. Pirates is directed by acclaimed director Joone, whose previous work includes such classics as Sex in the Valley, Virtual Sex with Tera Patrick, Jack’s Big Tit Show and Jack’s Playground: Big Ass Show 4, and, like most porn films, contains explicit images of [gasp!] naked people having sex. This, in and of itself, is about as noteworthy as the next report to come out about baseball players taking steroids or Morgan Spurlock’s shocking discovery that McDonald’s food is bad for you. However, as reliably as ever, some douchebag conservative politician has taken it upon himself to turn a simple film screening into a debate over obscenity and the role of government in public education.

State Senator Andrew P. Harris, whose district includes parts of Howard, Baltimore and Harford Counties, disapproves of the smut business in general, saying, “Pornography is not fun. It’s poison,” which is fine, however, Andrew P. Harris has access to the state budget and has decided that the film screening is such a horrible thing to do that he has threatened an amendment in which showing films deemed inappropriate would be grounds for a public university to lose all state funding — in the case of U-MD, a $424 million loss.

Initially, the University of Maryland catered to the whim of Chancellor Harris and the State Senate’s Thought Police, cancelling the screening. However, The Washington Post reported on Sunday that it had been rescheduled for Monday night, with the hardcore sex flick being preceded by a discussion on free speech. Harris’ fellow state senator Jamie B. Raskin, representing the more enlightened (read: rich and educated) district of Montgomery County, put it best:

“Pornographers and censors thrive on one another,” Raskin said. “I would hope that Sen. Harris would be content with having gotten the pornographers hundreds of thousands of dollars in free publicity for the movie and would leave well enough alone. They could not have paid for the publicity they got on TV and in newspapers.”

It’s unfortunate that Sen. Harris feels it is his responsibility to control what it is people are “allowed” to see and hear, not just because of the obvious Orwellian aspect, but because this is porn, and porn isn’t about free speech and the First Amendment; it’s about jerking off and feeling terrible about yourself.